New Testament: A Thematic Introduction

On the other hand, the New Testament or Covenant anticipated in Jeremiah The old covenant revealed the holiness of God in the righteous standard of the law and promised a coming Redeemer; the new covenant shows the holiness of God in His righteous Son. The New Testament, then, contains those writings that reveal the content of this new covenant. The message of the New Testament centers on 1 the Person who gave Himself for the remission of sins Matt.

Thus the central theme of the New Testament is salvation. The names Old and New Covenants were thus applied first to the two relationships into which God entered with men, and then, to the books that contained the record of these two relationships.

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In the time of the New Testament, Rome was the dominant world power and ruled over most of the ancient world. Yet in a small town in Palestine, Bethlehem of Judea, was born one who would change the world.

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Several factors contributed to this preparation. The preparation for the coming of Christ is the story of the Old Testament. The Jews were chosen of God from all the nations to be a treasured possession as a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation Ex. In that regard, beginning with the promises of God given to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Gen.

The Old Testament, therefore, was full of Christ and anticipated His coming as a suffering and glorified Savior. Though four hundred years had passed after the writing of the last Old Testament book, and though the religious climate was one of Pharisaic externalism and hypocrisy, there was a spirit of Messianic anticipation in the air and a remnant was looking for the Messiah. It is highly significant that when Christ, the one who came to be the Savior of the world and the one who would send His disciples out to the ends of the earth to proclaim the gospel Matt.

His desire was one world and one language. In the aftermath of his victories, he established the Greek language as the lingua franca , the common tongue, and the Greek culture as the pattern of thought and life. Though his empire was short lived, the result of spreading the Greek language endured. It is significant that the Greek speech becomes one instead of many dialects at the very time that the Roman rule sweeps over the world. It was the language not only of letters, but of commerce and every-day life.

The point here is that God was at work preparing the world for a common language and one that was a matchless vehicle of communication for clarity and preciseness to proclaim the message of the Savior. As a result, the books of the New Testament were written in the common language of the day, Koine Greek. It was not written in Hebrew or Aramaic, even though all the writers of the New Testament were Jews except for Luke, who was a Gentile.

Koine Greek had become the second language of nearly everyone. But God was not finished preparing the world for the coming Savior of the world. When Christ was born in Palestine, Rome ruled the world. Palestine was under Roman rule.

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Above all else, Rome was noted for her insistence upon law and order. As a result, over years of civil war had been brought to rest and Rome had vastly extended her boundaries. Further, the Romans built a system of roads, which, with the protection provided by her army that often patrolled the roads, contributed greatly to the measure of ease and safety by which travelers could make their way back and forth across the Roman empire.

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Augustus was the first Roman to wear the imperial purple and crown as the sole ruler of the empire. He was a moderate, wise and considerate of his people, and he brought in a great time of peace and prosperity, making Rome a safe place to live and travel. Now, because of all that Augustus accomplished, many said that when he was born, a god was born. It was into these conditions One was born who was and is truly the source of true personal peace and lasting world peace, versus the temporary and false peace which men can give—no matter how wise or good or outstanding.

He also was truly God, the God-Man, instead of a man called God. The presence of Roman rule and law helped to prepare the world for his life and ministry so the gospel could be preached. Before surveying the New Testament, it would also be well to get a general picture of what the religious world was like when the Savior came on the scene and when the church was sent out into the world. As you read the quote by Merrill Tenney, note the great similarity to our world today. The message of the Savior as revealed in the New Testament is like a breath of fresh air after being in a smoke filled room.

The Christian church was born into a world filled with competing religions which may have differed widely among themselves but all of which possessed one common characteristic—the struggle to reach a god or gods who remained essentially inaccessible. Apart from Judaism, which taught that God had voluntarily disclosed Himself to the patriarchs, to Moses, and to the prophets, there was no faith that could speak with certainty of divine revelation nor of any true concept of sin and salvation.

The current ethical standards were superficial, despite the ideal and insights possessed by some philosophers, and when they discoursed on evil and on virtue, they had neither the remedy for the one nor the dynamic to produce the other. Even in Judaism revealed truth had been obscured either by the encrustation of traditions or by neglect …. It retains many basic elements of truth but twists them into practical falsehood. Divine sovereignty becomes fatalism; grace becomes indulgence; righteousness becomes conformity to arbitrary rules; worship becomes empty ritual; prayer becomes selfish begging; the supernatural degenerates into superstition.

The light of God is clouded by fanciful legend and by downright falsehood. The consequent confusion of beliefs and of values left men wandering in a maze of uncertainties. To some, expediency became the dominating philosophy of life; for if there can be no ultimate certainty, there can be no permanent principles by which to guide conduct; and if there are no permanent principles, one must live as well as he can by the advantage of the moment.

Skepticism prevailed, for the old gods had lost their power and no new gods had appeared.

Thematic Guides

The New Testament authors are entwined in this network of sacrificial practices, groups, and debates. Given this reality, it is not at all surprising that sacrifice was on their minds, particularly as they began to articulate their understanding of Jesus, God, and the Christian movement. Given the importance of sacrifice to ancient Mediterranean religion, it was perhaps inevitable that Christians would use sacrificial ideas and imagery in their own religious mythmaking.

The goal of this short Thematic Guide by Daniel Ullucci, Rhodes College is to provide some signposts for those interested in understanding the complex and multi-vocal positions on sacrifice among the New Testament texts, directing the reader to more in-depth theoretical discussions of sacrifice and of the early Christian texts themselves. The impulse to examine the relationship between the Bible and ancient art or iconography goes back at least to the 19th and early 20th centuries, at which time an influx of new archaeological discoveries gave scholars more access than ever before to ancient Near Eastern visual materials.

Since that time, scholars have developed increasingly sophisticated ways of incorporating ancient images into religio-historical research. These new methods of study have helped to shed light on the interpretation of figurative language in the Hebrew Bible and the historical development of Israelite religion.

This thematic guide by Ryan Bonfiglio Emory University provides a general introduction to how and why images contribute to the study of the Hebrew Bible and Israelite religion and highlight additional resources that can facilitate further study of this topic.

It is primarily through the minds of scribes that we understand the biblical world and the ancient Near East. This thematic guide by James D. Moore Brandeis University introduces the culture and worldview of the Biblical writers, exploring the issues of ancient literacy and the mechanics of the scribal trade. Few topics are more central to the Hebrew Bible than priests and priesthood. In many ways, the Hebrew Bible bears witness to a community of people whose social identity, religious beliefs, and ritual practices were deeply enmeshed in matters related to the priesthood.

As Ryan Bonfiglio Emory University shows in this thematic guide, priestly perspectives and concerns are on display in various places, from legal materials to historical narratives, and from the prayers of the Psalms to the discourses of the prophets.

The Epistle to the Romans is the Apostle Paul's only epistle to a church he did not establish himself. Instead, Paul's comments are more theologically abstract, giving rise to an interpretive debate about the nature and purpose of the letter. In the ancient Mediterranean, temples were at the very center of society. The same was true for ancient Israel. Using archaeological evidence, Michael Chan Emory University discusses the influence of the temple as the residence of the deity, a source of societal blessing, and a center of writing, learning, and political power.

Michael Chan Emory University discusses the influence of Egypt as both a place and a literary and political theme. Empires exerted an enormous influence on biblical literature. In this guide, Michael Chan Emory University shows how the reign of empires in the region shaped the themes and archetypes of the Bible, from the story of Israel's Exodus out of Egypt to the charming tale of Esther in the Persian court, from the imperial image of Solomon to the violent judgment leveled against Assyria and Rome.

This thematic guide breaks the Gospel down into its main parts: The Books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach provide some of the most challenging, insightful, and influential literature in the Bible. In this thematic guide, Brennan Breed Emory University discusses the literary genres and social settings of these books, as well as their influence on culture, literature, and human interaction.

The New Testament: A Thematic Introduction

Addressing the issues of authorship and structure, von Dehsen shows how the correspondence can be a window into the early Church and the life and ideology of Paul. Complementing his Focus On article dealing with the Book of Revelation, Peter Perry Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago constructs a thematic guide that explores the book's major issues of prophecy, political power, slavery, and wealth, among others. In addition, Perry uses the OBSO articles and Biblical resources to detail the literary similarities between Revelation and numerous books of the Bible.

In this thematic guide, David Mindel, a librarian and student of religion, presents a series of questions typical of a conversation between a reference librarian and a student presented with the task of writing an undergraduate research paper on the Bible. This guide is designed to highlight the specific ways Oxford Biblical Studies Online can aid in writing a paper.